Sales people who use the telephone in their work currently reach telephone answering machines and automated voice mail systems about 50 percent of the time. Sales people are then forced to choose between disconnecting, with a net loss on the call, or giving their ace sales pitch to a machine. Time after time, they must expend a great deal of time and effort in order to leave messages on these answering machines and voice mail systems, messages which hopefully are well thought out, upbeat and interesting, even through they know that many of their messages will never be returned. This can be very frustrating, and many sales people quickly lose their enthusiasm for selling to such machines, and, consequently, fail to make their best sales presentation when confronted with an answering machine or voice mail system. This decrease in salesmanship can eventually carry over even to calls answered by real people, leading to a reduction in a sales person's overall effectiveness. It would be better if a system were available that allowed sales people to focus all of their energy on live, real time buyer prospects, while still allowing an effective sales message to be presented whenever answering machines and voice mail systems are reached.
Automated telephone message systems of various kinds do already exist. Among them are the familiar answering machine and voice mail systems, as well as caller-controlled systems that allow selection of several prerecorded messages. These latter caller-controlled systems are used by businesses and government agencies, such as the IRS, which receive a large volume of calls requesting certain kinds of information with great frequency. The system includes an automated telephone exchange and multiple message recording and playback units that have been prerecorded with frequently requested information. A caller can access the desired prerecorded information on a particular unit remotely by pressing one or more of the buttons on their own telephone, selected according to instructions received from the answering system itself or from published instructions previously made available to the caller. A selection may also be available that connects the caller to a person who can answer less frequently asked questions.
Message distribution systems have also been devised. These kinds of systems include an automatic dialing feature which originates a phone call to a designated station, and then, when a connection has been established, transmits a prerecorded audio message to the called telephone. When the message has been delivered, the line is disconnected, and the cycle is repeated for another telephone station. In this way, a sequence of designated stations can be called and the prerecorded message can be distributed automatically to a large number of telephone stations. The use of such systems has been severely restricted in recent years and their use for making huge numbers of unsolicited sales presentations is now prohibited by law as a form of harassment. Such systems, because they involve automatic dialing, require that the device be connected directly to the telephone line. Because of the direct connection, transient suppressors, relays and other safety components are required by the device.
An object of the present invention is to provide a messaging system that allows a sales person who reaches an answering machine or voice mail system to transmit a prerecorded message while also allowing the sales person to communicate directly with real people.